


Who's Going To Catch Me When I Fall?

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Prompt Fills [43]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Post-Episode: 2017 Xmas Twice Upon A Time, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-09-24 05:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20353435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: As the Doctor plummets to Earth following her regeneration, an old friend finds herself unable to intervene.





	Who's Going To Catch Me When I Fall?

**Author's Note:**

> From allnewtpir's prompt:
> 
> _We know at the end of Twice Upon A Time 13 took the plunge. I offer this scenario: What if she wasn't the only one falling? What if she was joined by a quasi-immortal soulmate of hers?_

Clara knows. She can’t explain _how_; can’t put into words the feeling of crashing loss that she suddenly experiences, stealing her breath and driving her to the floor of the study. All she knows is that something’s happened – a very _specific _something, in fact – and not only was she not there at the crucial moment, but now something is terribly, catastrophically wrong in the aftermath. 

The Doctor has regenerated.

She’s never been more sure of anything in her life, and yet there’s a strong, insistent, tugging undercurrent to her instinct; one that makes her stomach clench and her heart skip several beats as she tries desperately hard to think what precisely could have gone wrong; what could have happened to give rise to such acute panic that, even now, is bubbling white-hot and insidious in her stomach.

Stumbling to her feet and half-stepping, half-falling into the console room, she fumbles with switches and levers until her fingers find the one button she had sworn to never use. It’s inconspicuous-looking enough to be overlooked in daily life, but she is always acutely aware of its existence; acutely aware that should she need it, it’s there. She’d never asked for it – one day she’d found herself thinking _I wonder what he’s doing now? _and the next moment, there it was – a glimmering, navy-blue button, edged with sparkling silver. Even in her darkest moments, she’s never dared to press it; never given in to the aching, throbbing pain in her chest, although there have been days where she’s stood with her fingers hovering over the button, spending hours trying to talk herself out of using it. 

She presses it now for the first time; her eyes widening in horror as the screen on the console flickers to life, showing an achingly familiar room that is ablaze in what seems to be an uncontrollable inferno. Flames lick up the walls, bookshelves and tomes crumbling to ash in their wake, and the deep-red armchair she had always so adored is already half-blackened with soot, the leather starting to smoulder even as she watches. Sparks flicker across the display as the Doctor’s console begins to succumb to the heat, and there’s the sound of an explosion before the screen goes dark and the link dies. There’s no way the Doctor could be in there, surely? He wouldn’t allow such a fire to take hold of his home; wouldn’t permit any damage to occur to his beloved Type 40, not as long as there was breath in his body. _If there still **is **breath in his body._

No, if the TARDIS is tearing itself apart then there is little doubt that the Doctor is… well, _somewhere _else. The alternative is too terrible to consider, and instead she brushes the thought aside, concentrating on the spark of hope that she can feel deep in her stomach. She tries to quell the fear that’s clawing its way up her throat, flicking switches as she circles her own console, placing a calming hand on the metal as she senses her ship’s distress at seeing its twin alight.

“It’s OK,” she hums, half to herself and half to the TARDIS. “She’s going to be alright. The TARDIS has survived worse; you know how he treats her. Always leaving the brakes on. Crashing. Getting it nicked.”

There’s a low warble, and then the screen comes to life again. There’s a body displayed on it now, falling so fast that it makes her stomach swoop in empathy, and she feels her heart clench painfully as she recognises the damaged, half-destroyed coat that she had so loved. It’s hard to make it out clearly, but she can see where it’s been touched by flames, and smeared with mud. Had there been some kind of battle? A war?

“No,” she whispers, her eyes filling with tears, shaking her head as though denial might counteract gravity itself. “No, no, no… what happened? Why are you…” 

Her TARDIS dematerialises unbidden, and she lets out a cry of protest before she understands, with absolute clarity, where they are going. She keeps her eyes locked on the screen, watching the strange-yet-not-strange body hurtle towards the ground, and she tries to glean what little information she can as the figure falls victim to the wind and cold of the atmosphere. There’s a shock of blonde hair, short enough to frame a face she can’t focus on due to the speed of the descent. The same – albeit destroyed – clothes she had always so adored. Boots, half-falling off newly-small feet. There’s little doubt that the Doctor has lost consciousness as he tumbles head over heels through the void, and then without warning, the doors slam open and the Time Lord crashes onto the floor of her TARDIS with a sickening _thunk_. 

Clara lets out a muted yelp of shock, then rushes to the prone form and immediately corrects herself.

“Time Lady,” she says aloud, as though the Doctor might hear her and lurch awake, ready to explain the circumstances that had led to… well, this. “You’re… you’ve…” 

She drops to her knees at the Doctor’s side, reaching for her tentatively. Her hand makes contact with the Time Lady’s, and she feels a little thrill of regeneration energy as she slips her fingers into the tattered cuffs of the Doctor’s dress shirt, seeking out a pulse. It’s there, and it’s racing, but she allows her fingers to linger a little longer as she tries to catch her own breath. Not only is it reassuring to feel the achingly familiar double-pulse that she had grown so acclimatised to, but it’s electrifying being this close to the Doctor again; thrilling to be touching her, knowing that she’s the first person to have contact with this brand-new body. She laces her fingers through the Doctor’s, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze and wondering what, exactly, this new person is going to be like.

“What happened?” she murmurs, brushing the Doctor’s hair out of her eyes and starting to learn this new face. High cheekbones. Smooth lips, unblemished, as yet, by absent-minded chewing. Eyelashes so long that they look almost unnaturally perfect. Blonde hair cropped short enough to be pragmatic – she can’t see the Doctor with the same mane of hair that Missy so enjoyed styling.

The overall effect is one of enormous beauty, albeit in a quietly understated way. This is not the face of a supermodel, but it’s a face that is pleasing to look at; it’s a face that suggests smiles and kindness and an ease with people which her predecessor never pulled off, even under Clara’s careful tutelage. Clara feels foolish in her surprise; of course, when the Doctor decided to try feminine, she wouldn’t do things by halves – did the Time Lords even know the meaning of the word? No; she’s so beautiful that it hurts Clara’s heart, and she half-smiles as she recalls Madame Vastra’s words to her about the Doctor’s recent – if you could call the last few millennia ‘recent’ – overwhelming predilection for appearing as pretty young men. _Pretty young women, too, now, _she thinks to herself. _Are your friends what have caused all this? Have you made yourself pretty for… well, me? Or is it for the benefit of humanity – as Vastra explained all those years ago? You always knew my head was never turned by pretty young men; but this? This is something else entirely; this is another sort of person altogether._

There’s more pressing questions to ask, even if the Doctor appears unconscious; Clara wonders whether the lack of consciousness may be due post-regenerative trauma, or whether it’s the result of such a vertiginous fall. “Why were you falling like that?” she asks aloud. “And what’s wrong with the TARDIS? It’s… it’s on fire. Literally on fire. You’re going to go spare.” 

There’s no response, and Clara throws caution to the wind. She leans forward and presses her lips to the Doctor’s forehead; her cheeks; and then her lips, her own mouth salted with tears as she finally allows the shock to overcome her. Whoever the Doctor is now, Clara knows wholeheartedly that she loves her, and yet this is a new person; a new personality; a new set of thoughts and feelings and mannerisms and habits. Will this Doctor recall her? Will she want to? Will she try to find her? Will she even have the urge to? Or will she simply consider Clara to be part of the past; a piece of mental furniture to be stored away in a metaphorical attic? Gone are the men she knew and loved, and yet her feelings haven’t wavered an inch as she looks down at the woman before her. It’s confusing; there’s loss and elation and joy and sadness and terror and grief and a thousand other feelings swirling around her head, and all she wants is to speak to this quasi-stranger; to be reassured, even if it’s by a voice she doesn’t yet know. All she wants are a few kind words, even if the Doctor has no idea who she might be. It’s unlikely enough, yet still she hopes; she recalls the last time this happened, and the time it took that Doctor to find his feet. It had been a sudden and swift recovery, made in the face of danger, and she can’t help but wish for the same; wish that the Doctor will sit up abruptly and start chattering away about something trivial. She wonders idly whether she could find some danger in the hope of eliciting some kind of instinctual response, but to do seems trivial and unnecessary, so she abandons that idea at once.

Her heart aches for the man she has lost; it soars and breaks, all at once, for the woman she has gained. The woman she has only just found, but is undoubtedly about to lose. 

“God, you bloody idiot,” she whispers, cupping the Doctor’s cheek with a shaking hand. “I loved you so much, and I should have told you while I had the chance. I should’ve been glaringly, stupidly obvious; I should have spelled that out; I should have shouted it from the rooftops. Now… now you’ll want someone new. Now I’ll just be a nice memory.” 

Her voice breaks on the last word and she presses another kiss to the Doctor’s lips. “You idiot,” she repeats, her words tremulous. “_My _idiot.”

She curls up at the Time Lady’s side, ignoring the smell of mud and soot and burned fabric and – underneath it all, cloying and insidious – death; burying her face in the unfamiliar hollow of the stranger’s shoulder and wishing, with all her heart, that the Doctor would regain consciousness. If only Clara could hear her speak; see her stride around the console room; listen to her doing her thing. Perhaps then, this might make all the more sense. Perhaps then, she might find this all the easier to deal with. She would be able to find out what this quasi-stranger knew, and whether she recalled her. She would, perhaps, be able to convince her to stay with her, just like the old days. 

Instead, she cries. She shuts out the usual beeping electronic sounds of her own TARDIS; the Doctor’s breathing, slow and steady; the reassuring _thud-thud _of the Time Lady’s double heartbeat. She closes it all out and surrenders herself to tears, allowing her grief to consume her. She knows that this moment is stolen; knows that eventually she will have to surrender the Doctor to the fate that she was due to fulfil before she was scooped out of space by her errant TARDIS; and yet for now, this is all that matters. The two of them. 

Time and space can wait.

* * *

From two hundred feet above Sheffield, Clara lifts the sonic sunglasses to the top of her head and chews on her lip with tangible concern. She leans out of the doors of the TARDIS tentatively, squinting down at the motionless train, stretched out in the darkness below. There’s a person-sized hole in the roof that she’s fairly certain that she managed to create impeccable with timing, the Doctor falling through with only the barest millimetre and millisecond to spare, and Clara tries to reassure herself that this is for the best; this continuation of the narrative that she had so rudely interrupted is imperative to the functioning of the universe.

It doesn’t mean it hurts any less.

The screen behind her crackles back to life unbidden, and a voice plays over the speaker system. 

“What?” 

Her heart misses a beat – she needs to be absolutely sure, before she allows herself to hope. 

“Should buy us a few seconds,” there’s a pause, and then the voice continues in a distinctively Doctor-like tone: “Oh yeah, long story. Tell you later. Doors?”

“Oh,” Clara says to herself with an enormous smile, her eyes filling with unshed tears. “You’re _northern_.”


End file.
